What is it - First announced by Epic Games 6 years ago Fortnite is finally coming out. The gist is that 98% of the worlds population suddenly disappeared, and to make things worse bizarre purple eldritch storms started sweeping across the planet depositing waves of various monsters to kill the people that are left. You play stylised survivors in a stylised world trying to stay alive.

You play in third person with each character having three abilities, similar to the Mass Effect multiplayers. Each mission has your group dropped into a randomly generated map based on rural/suburban/city etc biomes. You run around scavenging building supplies, searching for crafting materials, rescuing survivors and doing various other mini missions before doing the main objective. This objective pretty much always involves building a base to withstand waves of attacks but sometimes is a little more complicated, like building tracks to shuttle supplies from one point on the map to another while also withstanding waves of attacks, or a little simpler like just rescuing enough survivors or merking enough enemy spawns.

Building is quick and simple, you can whip up a wooden stairway to reach the top of a skyscraper or a set of fences around an objective in seconds. You can also get fancy with arches, complex stairways, ramparts of stone and metal etc for something more stable and protective.

Besides missions each region also has you building an outpost. These are permanent buildings that you have to periodically protect to advance through the game, these are the games toughest challenges and where proper building is most important. Traps, chokepoints, sniping towers, ways to move quickly around the fort, upgraded walls, it all matters way more here than on field missions.

It's also a loot game. There are tons of different weapons, characters, survivors, traps, skills etc that you can unlock and just about everything can be upgraded. Weapons, resources and ammo can be dropped and shared with other players but weapons will eventually break. Unlocking a weapon also unlocks the schematic for it so you can build new ones though.

I don't have any friends - Pick up group play with randoms is perfectly possible but a group of players with headsets is probably needed to do the very toughest missions. You can place AI Defenders on the map to help defend, and with a few levels and a decent weapon they are actually pretty handy. The weapon you give them and any leftover ammo gets put back into your inventory after the mission so go wild with them but keep in mind they can die and may need to be picked up now and then.

Characters - There are tons of characters, all one of four classes with various different looks and randomly chosen abilities and skills. Rarer characters have more of these abilities and skills but it's possible to take any character to max with enough time.

From left to right the classes are

Outlander - Scavenging specialists, they get bonuses to searching and gathering, can see hidden treasures and have gadget-ey abilities like a giant metal bear turret, a quick teleport jump or dropping a big metal llama full of resources. If you see a player drop one of these get in and start swinging at it, the more damage it takes before self-destructing the better resources it drops.
Outlanders have some abilities that work differently to other classes. There are little round consoles across the map, collecting those gives the Outlander a charge to use an ability once.

Soldier - Fightmans, get bonuses to weapon damage and can summon a big gently caress-off minigun to murderise everything in a pinch. They also have grenades, group damage buffs and some regen abilities.

Ninja - Agile melee specialists, they are quick double-jumpers that throw ninja stars and cut up enemies with melee abilities. Their skills tend to have very quick cooldowns.

Constructor - Building specialists, they get bonuses to building and repair, can upgrade walls to the highest level and put down a forward base that buffs anything you build in its vicinity.

Special Deluxe Super Limited Founder Mega Editions - There are some. Check the website because I'm not going through all that nonsense.

Epic Games have sponsored a load of youtubers to play the game so there's tons of gameplay vids around. 90% of them make jokes about how THICC the lady constructor is it's great.

Also don't focus on leveling rare weapon schematics. You won't be able to build them for a while. A good Grey or Green Schematic will carry you for a while. Traps on the other hand are good because rarity doesn't affect the mats too much.

- Backpack space is limited and shared with crafting materials. Recycle weapons, traps you don't care for. Throw away fireworks! (Not schematics, that's a different inventory limit).
- You can only see your backpack in a mission, so go to your storm shield if you need to.
- Go for the backpack space upgrades in skill tree and research.

Anything that is set as a Favorite can't be recycled/retired/collected as long as it's set as a favorite. Immediately setting items of interest as a Favorite will help avoid unintentional loss of those items. If you want to put the item in the book, or recycle/retire it you can always un-favorite it later to do so.

So for the collection book, honestly you only need one of each schematic unless you want to have different levels. Reasoning is that there are four different tiers to the game, (the four different areas). Each tier has its own set of tiered resources which coincides with the star level of your weapons and traps. levels 1-10 11-20 and so on and so forth are different tiers. That saying, you can keep lower level weapons that are cheaper on resources, if you want. However you will obtain them later on. So don't level past your area. If you are really hurting on resources use an outlander with the chance to double resources as your main hero, also slot an outlander with the double % chance in your support(or tactical) slot.

What to spend vbucks on? Depends on what you need, the current llama rate is something along the lines of 11-14% silver and 4-6% gold. I do not know the jackpot rate unfortunately (jackpot can occur on any llama and it gives you 4-6x the card amount of the llama). There is a daily llama that changes at or around 6pm central. If you need heroes/people wait for the 1000 Super people Llama, if you need weapons, get the weapon llama's, so on and so forth. The special llama's have a chance to upgrade also (unless it says it is guaranteed to upgrade)

The different loots and their uses are

Heroes - The people you play as. You can also slot two of them as passive supporters, giving buffs or abilities.

I keep 1 of each hero of each class of the highest level, just for the tactical/support bonus. If I see a class that has a bonus I will use with the same class, Such as a soldier (which I use as a main) and the same soldier with a good bonus, I will keep both. Otherwise you don't need to keep multiple heros.

***Transmuting - You can transmute ANY item into ANY item if you have a blueprint for transmutation. it takes 5 or 6 RARE(BLUE) Heroes for 1 purple. Heroes are worth the most in terms of transmutation points. It does cost a poo poo ton of survivors (the people resources),somewhere around 450 I think for a purple hero.

The only different between purple/legend/mythic Heroes are stats, they have the same skills. The legend/mythic heroes' stats increase a bit more, but cost more.

Defenders - In game you can build a trap called a Defender Pad and can then place a Defender to patrol and fight in that general area. They need to be given weapons and ammunition but are useful if you are defending your home base solo. I've tested it and you do get the weapon and ammunition back at the end of the mission, but others have reported losing them so don't give them your best stuff until that bug is fixed I guess.

Survivors - This is presented as far more complicated than it is; Survivors are slotted into Squads, each Squad gives you an increase to a particular statistic. Lead Survivors command each Squad, if a Survivor has a matching personality to the Lead Survivor then they get a bonus. Just choose the highest numbers you can't go wrong.

Schematics - Schematics are a blueprint for a particular weapon or trap and mean you can craft them. Having at least a ranged, melee and floor trap schematic at all times is pretty smart.

quote:

Homebase Power is key
Unlock survivor slots - Survivor Squads account for the majority of your Homebase power. Make sure to slot matching leaders to squad, and then personalities to leaders when you can.

Level Up Uncommon (green) Survivors - They are an efficient way to gain power in Plankerton. Most of the XP is returned when you retire them. You need to spend survivor XP to gain power, don’t horde!

Slot and level up your Support and Tactical Heroes - These Heroes share their stats to the primary hero and provide significant boosts to health, shields, and ability damage. Even Uncommon Heroes are huge wins here.

Research provides power over time - Make sure to gather this every day and upgrade the F.O.R.T. stats and unlock Survivor slots.

Play missions for Drops of Rain and Survivor XP. You’ll need Drops of Rain for evolution, and you’ll need lots of Survivor XP to level all those Leads and Survivors.

Team up with others - Teaming up provides big boosts to Homebase power. A portion of your F.O.R.T. stats are shared with each party member.

How to pick appropriate difficulty missions

Your level for combat is based on three numbers - Homebase Power, Hero Power, Weapon Power - When all these match and you play a matching difficulty you will be on level for game.
If one of those numbers is below focus on improving that area.
What happens if you are off level? You need more bullets, you are more squishy, you build more to slow husks down, generally the game feels more grindy.

F.O.R.T. Stats Explained

Fortitude - Improves health. If you are getting killed too fast you may not have enough Fortitude.
Offense - Improves weapon damage, both melee and ranged. If it takes too long to kill husks, focus on Offense.
Resistance - Improves shield and shield regen. Best way to improve your survivability for quick moving players.
Tech - Improves ability damage, and traps. Key for Ninja’s skills, and players who use lots of traps.

F.O.R.T. stats are improved through Survivor Squads, Skill Tree, and Reasearch Tree. They are the primary driver of Homebase power.

Getting More Stuff

Mission Alerts - You may have noticed some zones with a little clock on them. These have better rewards that can be collected up to three times per day. Watch for these, they have Drops of Rain, XP, Schematics, and V-bucks in rare cases.

Dailies - You get one daily per day, you can have up three, and can abandon one per day and get a new one.

Quests - Look at the Quest Journal, there are quests that provide V-Bucks, Heroes, Schematics, Leads, and Survivors. Do these quests to help unlock things you need. As we iterate we’ll be adding more quests.

Expeditions - Send your extra Heroes out to find Survivors, rewards of these still require more balance, as a passive reward they provide a steady drip of Survivors.

Llamas - Purchased with V-Bucks, Earned from Outpost Defenses (Help a friend!), given as daily rewards either from the Founders Pack or from the Daily Reward progression.

Transform keys - Combine commons, and uncommons to get rares. When you’re ready start combining Survivors to get ones you need.

Survivors the quick and easy way. It might help to think of survivors as your armor and accessories in other RPGs, if you're familiar with that way of thinking.

Match lead survivors to the correct job. There are some edge cases, but I can guarantee that they don't apply to you if you need a guide on survivors.

Offense squads are the most important. Your guns, blades, and tools are your bread, butter, fruits, vegetables, and meats of the food pyramid. They get stronger the more offense you have. You can take cover to survive without strong life totals, and you can let someone else place your traps if you don't have strong tech, but you're always carrying a weapon and only you can swing or fire it.

Both personality and bonuses are probably insignificant in the long run. Personality appears to be a flat bonus of 2-3 points based on the rarity of the survivor. Legendary survivors might give more of a personality bonus, but probably not enough to care. Super high evolution levels might give more of a bonus, but probably not at all. Bonuses are not multiplicative. The health bonus is literally +5 fortitude. The shield bonus is worth +5 resistance for max shield, but it doesn't increase regen speed. The damage bonuses are worth +5 offense, but they only work on one weapon type. For comparison, using blue survivors at level 10 I have 237 offense. Matching the personality of all 5 of my unlocked survivors would be worth 15 offense, literally less than evolving one to 2 star and level them to 20. The only bonus that matters right now is trap durability. And even that isn't very good.

Level your survivors in the offense squads to 10 before you do anything else. 10 is a good stopping point, because going further costs evolution materials and future levels represent a much larger investment of time.

Possible problems:

I try to take cover but I die instantly when I pop out to shoot! Ghosts kill me in a single charge. You need to increase the levels and/or rarities of your Fortitude and Resistance survivors. Short term you should try pulling survivors from your offense squads, but be warned that the lower damage you have might make things worse. Try to keep your Fortitude and Resistance stats about equal. You regenerate the last 1/3 of your health bar, and your shield is about 1/3 as strong as your health. Not exactly but close enough. Put this off as long as the missions are still fun, because the further in the game you are the faster it is to collect experience. Procrastinating means you spend longer grinding the same thing in a row, but less time grinding over all.

My damage skills and traps feel like poo poo now! In an effort to increase required spending the developers split trap and ability damage into a fourth stat. Short term you should try pulling survivors from your offense squads, but be warned that the lower weapon damage you have might make things worse. Put this off as long as your skills and traps are still fun to use, because the further in the game you are the faster it is to collect experience. Procrastinating means you spend longer grinding the same thing in a row, but less time grinding over all. There are also skills and traps that don't require tech to be strong. Floor spikes still slow, launchers launch, wall lights stun, and any buff based skills still do their job. It's only damage that requires tech stats.

Vitamin P fucked around with this message at Sep 28, 2017 around 08:44

I'm enjoying it, the basic gameplay loop of explore, build, defend, loot, repeat is pretty engaging from the few hours I've played. It's far too easy at the start though and does a terrible job explaining some of the mechanics.

Little tips I've picked up on
- If you want to do a map solo to take your time gathering crafting materials and figure out to play, there's an option on the Launch screen that took me ages to find to make the map public or private.
- You can't craft weapons, traps or ammo from the meta-menu, it's only through your inventory in game.
- Look out for the artillery witch ladies that throw skulls, if anything will break your defences early game it's them.
- The Constructors Base ability is really good, and you can place it on different parts of the fort depending on where the attack is coming from.

Also don't focus on leveling rare weapon schematics. You won't be able to build them for a while. A good Grey or Green Schematic will carry you for a while. Traps on the other hand are good because rarity doesn't affect the mats too much.

This game is Orcs Must Die combined with Minecraft and the styling of Zombies Ate My Neighbors.

Important facts

- Standard edition is for chumps. You are paying full retail to play a F2P before it opens. At least you can pay to upgrade it to a better package.
- Backpack space is limited and shared with crafting materials. Recycle weapons, traps you don't care for. Throw away fireworks! (Not schematics, that's a different inventory limit).
- You can only see your backpack in a mission, so go to your storm shield if you need to.
- Go for the backpack space upgrades in skill tree and research.
- All the good rewards are from quests and time limited missions.
- Hero skills shown with a star and number are only available after "Evolution".
- Defenders throw away your weapons so don't give them anything good.

Game is fun, it really reminds me of a strange combo of Orcs Must Die, Minecraft and Warframe, with Orcs Must Die being the primary influence. Haven't really had to make the kill zones like in OMD yet but I can imagine them being a thing as you level up.

Game is a complete mess of locked up stats behind level walls and hilariously complicated and obscure leveling and loot system.

Honestly if they just simplified and calmed the the gently caress down with all this weird added on poo poo , they'd have a fun game. It's too bad they didn't put that OCD focus on more than 4 enemy designs.

Game is a complete mess of locked up stats behind level walls and hilariously complicated and obscure leveling and loot system.

Honestly if they just simplified and calmed the the gently caress down with all this weird added on poo poo , they'd have a fun game. It's too bad they didn't put that OCD focus on more than 4 enemy designs.

There's more than 4 different enemies, dude. Keep playing.

no arguing the whole 'overcomplicated stats and collections' thing though

You pay $60 to get 7 loot pinatas. You can't play the game for a year without spending but this package is paying for the privilege of experiencing the sharp end of the F2P model. If you really want to play go Deluxe. If you're not interested wait a year for more polish and content.

You pay $60 to get 7 loot pinatas. You can't play the game for a year without spending but this package is paying for the privilege of experiencing the sharp end of the F2P model. If you really want to play go Deluxe. If you're not interested wait a year for more polish and content.

Is there a button I missed to pick back up stuff I've placed down, or do I have to manually destroy them all with a pickaxe? I want to re-do my Storm Shield area, but if I have to tear down every wall with my pickaxe...........................................

It's pretty awful and I still haven't the faintest loving clue if I should bother figuring it out. I'm going with "no" for now.

As long as you beeline through the main questline and unlock the level 2 tree ASAP so you can 2star your weapon schematics and keep them on par with harder content, you're likely in a good place.

I personally plan on branching out to every single "+5 backpack space" node that exists before doing much of anything else as well, because gently caress games with limited inventory and non-infinite item stacking.

Shot myself in the dick by putting up my Constructor (the first one you get for free) and a random drop Ninja into the Collection without properly reading how the Collection works, now I'm waiting for a constructor to drop so I can do these Hero quests/send a Hero out to do expeditions.

It's pretty awful and I still haven't the faintest loving clue if I should bother figuring it out. I'm going with "no" for now.

The survivor system is pointless. It's just a stand alone stats book, it might have been good if you actually built a base and put people in it like State Of Decay.

Evolving anything that isn't at least Epic is a waste of resources. You'd get about 1/3 of the XP back if you later recycle it and gently caress all of the evolution materials.

Backpack space stinks. I have about 30 slots used with crafting items and that's after filling the 10 slots on my storm storage.

There are too many hero variations. They turned about three heroes worth of traits into nine heroes. Instead of making a talent tree they have put them in as individual characters to give more to collect.

The weapon variations do work ok but you make weapon XP too slowly to do anything but use the best few. I've got 32 blue or better weapons and only XP in 8.

Having to craft ammo will always be a bad idea. It's not really a problem if you remember to demolish all children's playgrounds/parking meters but I'd hate to make laser ammo with that bacon requirement.

I haven't had an issue with ammo for a bunch of maps after setting my matchmaking to public and going do a Atlas City map with pubbies.. you get about a whole day of scavenging materials throughout the city, then you can go start the Atlas thing on the second day and the pubs will usually join you at the objective by then.

I'm enjoying the game so far, but not sure if it'll have much staying power. Then again, I'm still in the first area.

I have a really hard time not taking the outlander chick because of her Keen Eye ability for finding chests. Maybe once I learn what to look for it'll be less necessary, but there are still a lot of normal looking containers that glow. And being able to run through a house quickly and find the best stuff without opening everything is a big time saver.

Yeah I've been using the outlander a lot for the same reason
I've also had a bunch of ammo issues but running Rescue the Survivors in any suburb map lets you spend the whole 15 min or so running about smashing cars and parking meters and I'm sitting at max capacity now for most of my guns.

This definitely needs some UX love because it really is a hodge-podge of different stats and crafting systems that is kind of cool but at the same time either features very slow interfaces (collection screen), or is really hard to decipher when there are no tooltips for the ingredient icons (at least on in-mission inventory). Things could be a little smoother if they gave characters a selective Keen Eye to help highlight good sources specific ingredients.

There really needs to be a merge between the in-game inventory and the out of game Armory. Like, being what you've currently got equipped and being able to craft bullets or maybe do some resource conversion to have a bullet farm going on the side or something.

I mean, overall it's OK. It feels like a budget or indie title but this is an Epic Games game. With 6 years of development, you'd expect more. I guess they're running into the same problem that Valve is currently having. All the actual Game Designers have left the building due to the focus on Unreal or, in Valve's case, Steam.

I'm enjoying the game so far, but not sure if it'll have much staying power. Then again, I'm still in the first area.

I have a really hard time not taking the outlander chick because of her Keen Eye ability for finding chests. Maybe once I learn what to look for it'll be less necessary, but there are still a lot of normal looking containers that glow. And being able to run through a house quickly and find the best stuff without opening everything is a big time saver.

They went a little too apeshit with the Tutorial. Basically all 10 pages of Quests feels like a tutorial. The game slowly comes alive at around the 6th page. Meanwhile you have the Robot NPC screaming about how exciting and intense everything is as you sleepily spawn camp the spawn area.

I feel like the building tutorial stuff should've ramped up to the "build this radar tower" experience quicker. With the "build limit" goal it basically has me making nothing except short walls only when I exactly know where the pathing choke points are going to be. The build system itself is really good but rewarding "not building" hamstrings it. Let me blueprint out some rad towers or minefields from the home screen if I want, and then fill in the blanks building it during a mission. Or just give me a 2d notepad so I can make my own schematics without risking resources or play bonuses.

Also - and maybe this is because I only play w/ pubs but coordination really stinks. It just seems like everyone pops into a map, does random stuff for a random amount of time and then hopefully everyone clumps up once the objective is active.

I feel like the building tutorial stuff should've ramped up to the "build this radar tower" experience quicker. With the "build limit" goal it basically has me making nothing except short walls only when I exactly know where the pathing choke points are going to be. The build system itself is really good but rewarding "not building" hamstrings it. Let me blueprint out some rad towers or minefields from the home screen if I want, and then fill in the blanks building it during a mission. Or just give me a 2d notepad so I can make my own schematics without risking resources or play bonuses.

Yeah, I've basically stopped building anything and leaving it to the pubs because not only does it take a bunch of mats from your own stash, but without any kind of coordination you're likely to just get in each other's way.

I apparently ended up playing with one of the devs this morning (he had [Epic] before his name, and responded to a question about a potential map transparency setting), and he actually made a pretty decent looking structure around the arc, but not really any traps. Not that we came even close to needing them on the rank 9 mission.

Does anyone know what the rules are for zombie pathing? I had some of them run around behind my structures to tear down some stairs, then run around back front to attack the front wall.

This is far from official, but in my limited experience so far, it seems like you can corral them to an extent. If you deliberately leave an open path that more or less goes from their spawn point to your defense objective, they'll primarily follow that route. I had an ATLAS defense that was next to several houses and the zombie spawn was on the opposite side of those houses with an obvious alley that lead straight between them. So, I threw up some extra walls at the edges to make going around the alley a slower process (hoping Orks Must Die logic would apply and they'd take the shortest route that their AI detected) in hopes that they'd funnel down the route I wanted. That route was then turned into a ludicrous murder corridor lined with every trap that I happened to have on me. Luckily, my teammates seemed to get the idea and played along to give it a shot. I'd say a good 95% of them funneled from wherever they spawned straight into this long, narrow corridor of traps and gunfire. We'd occasionally have a random red dot or two on the sides that needed killing and a quick tap of repair on an otherwise blank metal wall, but we could largely ignore it.

The thing that I've been noticing is that the chat window seems utterly broken. My own messages appear a good 5 minutes after I type them and I'll regularly see messages from other people that seem similarly late for their lack of relevance. Anyone else noticing that or is something busted on my end?

The thing that I've been noticing is that the chat window seems utterly broken. My own messages appear a good 5 minutes after I type them and I'll regularly see messages from other people that seem similarly late for their lack of relevance. Anyone else noticing that or is something busted on my end?

Definitely not just you. Doesn't happen all the time but it does happen to my friends and I from time to time.

Also - and maybe this is because I only play w/ pubs but coordination really stinks. It just seems like everyone pops into a map, does random stuff for a random amount of time and then hopefully everyone clumps up once the objective is active.

This is actually exactly what you want. Chests and such go to the player who opens them first so by splitting up there's less competition.

In other words, this is a co-op multiplayer game that promotes solo play.

Yeah I've been using the outlander a lot for the same reason
I've also had a bunch of ammo issues but running Rescue the Survivors in any suburb map lets you spend the whole 15 min or so running about smashing cars and parking meters and I'm sitting at max capacity now for most of my guns.

Found another reason outlanders are the obvious choice: All the backpack upgrades are in their trees.

Are the weapon llamas worth it, or should I stick with the upgrade ones always, especially early on? Mainly trying to find legendary/epic/whatever handgun and sniper/assault rifles to upgrade/evolve and remain useful in missions above my rank.